Students accepting their college diplomas this graduation season are told they’ve achieved an admirable goal - but also that they might be exiting the best, most carefree years of their lives.

This resembles the current situation surrounding the Federal Reserve, which is eager to let the economy graduate from its long stay under zero interest rates, but faces investor anxiety that things might only get rougher and more complicated once that moment comes.

Everyone wants the economy to be ready to handle the so-called normalization of interest rates. But we’ve been sheltered at zero for so long, that investors are understandably wary how the markets might take a shift – especially if we lack utter certainty that economy is growing with good momentum.

We’ve been at zero overnight rates for the past six-and-a-half years. The Fed hasn’t raised rates in nine years. The last time it started a rate-tightening cycle was 11 years ago. So an entire boom-bust-boom cycle has occurred since a Fed chair initiated the process of withdrawing stimulus from the system.

That being said, Yellen should get the benefit of the doubt. Her take in March that weak first-quarter growth was mostly about temporary factors has mostly borne out. Wages are finally on the upswing, as she’s anticipated, and with the help of the oil-price rebound inflation is trending up toward the Fed’s target range.

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So today, Yellen is well set up to deliver a nuanced but reasonably comforting message: The economy has picked up recently, the “liftoff” from zero rates could happen soon assuming that continues, with September still a decent bet but not a certainty.

It’s never easy to know exactly what the market wants on a Fed-statement day. But the market action on Fed days this year seem to show that investors collectively are making their peace with the approach of “graduation day,” so to speak.

On the first two Fed meeting days this year, the bond market staged a relief rally upon hearing a relatively dovish tone from Yellen. The 2-year Treasury note yield – the one most sensitive to Fed policy expectations – pulled back notably on the day of the January and March meetings, as did the 10-year Treasury yield (^TNX). This was investors embracing Yellen’s patient stance.

At the last meeting in late April, though, the overall market response was minimal – the two-year note was about flat, 10-year yields climbed a bit and stocks shrugged.

Over the course of the year, the markets have gradually re-priced themselves for a policy change. The two-year Treasury now yields 0.71%, up from 0.46% after the January Fed meeting, and the 10-year yield is around 2.3% versus 1.7% then. Stocks have slid sideways all year - churning nervously or consolidating constructively, depending on one’s interpretation.

Yet bank stocks remain the thing to keep in focus. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) has undergone its own liftoff, rising as yields have climbed all year and the economic fundamentals have held together. This group is up more than 10% year to date and has gained more than 8% since the late April meeting, even with the broad market flat.

This is reassuring action, and so long as it lasts it implies that the market is gaining some confidence that Janet Yellen will only choose to hold graduation ceremonies ending this long period under zero-percent rates when it’s fully appropriate.

The last thing Yellen wants is to express the regret of Bluto Blutarski in “Animal House”: “Seven years of college, down the drain.”